After Flourish and Blotts
by A Chocolate Frog
Summary: Molly was on the warpath. 'Arthur Harold Weasley, what were you thinking' she bellowed." Set during CoS after the trip to Diagon Alley. Oneshot. Contains mild language.


_I was reading _Chamber of Secrets_ recently, and this just popped into my head as soon as I'd finished the chapter entitled "At Flourish and Blotts." I've never written about Molly and Arthur before, but found that I thoroughly enjoy them. I apologize for the lack of a creative title; if you can think of something better, please let me know!! As always, please enjoy and please leave me a review. :)_

_Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling is a genius and created nearly everyone and everything in this story. If you recognize it, it's hers._

_**After Flourish and Blotts**_

Molly Weasley was on the warpath. She clambered out of the kitchen fireplace, quickly counted noses to make sure all the children had arrived safely, and shouted at Fred and George to help Ginny carry her new school things to her room. Then she dumped the packages she had been carrying onto the table and stormed up the stairs.

She was shaking, her breath coming in short, angry puffs. Molly couldn't remember the last time she had been this furious at her husband. The bedroom door was closed, but she burst through it and slammed it behind her.

"Arthur Harold Weasley, what the _hell_ were you thinking?" she bellowed.

His back was to her; he was staring out the window to the back yard with his arms folded stiffly across his chest. "I wasn't," he said coldly.

"I should say not!" Molly ranted. "Honestly, _brawling_ in the middle of the shop, with Lucius Malfoy of all people – he _doesn't_ need another reason to look down his nose at us, Arthur – I thought you were a bigger man than that! _What_ kind of example have you set for the children –"

"Save it, Molly, I'm not one of the kids and I don't need a lecture from you," Arthur snapped, but she kept talking.

"– I've never been so mortified – in front of Harry and the Grangers and _Gilderoy Lockhart_ –"

Arthur finally rounded on her, eyes flashing, his face nearly the color of his hair. "Well, I'm so sorry I embarrassed you in front of _Gilderoy Lockhart_. Goddamn it, Molly, I am so sick of hearing about him! Why didn't you just go out with him when he asked?"

She was suddenly silent, her face a mask of total surprise. "B-because he was too old for me," she stammered. "He was a seventh year and I was only fourteen. And besides, I was in love with you."

"Well, I'm sorry you picked the wrong man," he muttered, trudging miserably across the small room to the bed. He sat down and took off his glasses, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"What?" Molly asked in a small voice. She sat down next to him.

"I'm sure Gilderoy Lockhart would be a better husband and father than I've ever been. At least he'd be able to provide for his family."

"Arthur, you are a _wonderful_ husband and father," she insisted, taking his hand in both of hers. "The children adore you. I do too. And you're a wonderful provider. We're not lacking anything, we always manage to get what we need. We just have a lot of expenses right now, but we're making do."

Arthur sighed. "I hate that hand-me-downs and battered old spellbooks and secondhand cauldrons are the best I can give my children. I've seen Ginny looking longingly at the fashion robes in the catalogs that come, and Ron really needs a new wand...."

"Ron's wand will be fine for another school year, as long as he's careful," Molly promised. "And we'd all like to have fine things if we could, but they're really not important. Our kids understand that family and friendship and love are the things that really matter." She paused. "I doubt Lucius Malfoy ever stayed up all night with his sick, screaming son so that his wife could get some rest, like you did when Charlie was a baby." She smiled, remembering. "And I doubt that he'd put on a pair of glittery fairy wings to have tea with the Wendy Witch dolls if he had a daughter."

Arthur snorted. "Never. Malfoy wouldn't look half so good in those fairy wings as I did anyway. And he's probably got a brilliant black eye at the moment." He grinned proudly. "I walloped him a good one with that _Encyclopedia of Toadstools_."

Molly smiled too. "You certainly did." She took out her wand and murmured a healing charm, and the small cut on his lip vanished.

"Listen, Arthur," she said, "I know we haven't had the easiest time of things lately, but I love you more than anything, and that will never change. There is no one in the world that I would rather be raising my children with and spending my life with than you."

"Same here," he said simply, and kissed her deeply.

Molly giggled as she finally pulled away. "You make me feel like I'm sixteen again."

Arthur wiggled his eyebrows. "We're not sixteen anymore? I hadn't noticed."

"Oh, Arthur," she laughed and kissed him again.

Just then a tremendous _bang_ erupted from a few floors above, and tiny particles of plaster rained down

from the ceiling.

"That was a bigger explosion than usual," Arthur sighed. "I suppose I should go see what the twins are up to."

Molly glanced at the clock. "And I should get dinner started." She planted one more kiss on her husband's cheek and said, "Gilderoy Lockhart can keep his adventures. Our lives are exciting enough as it is."

Arthur chuckled. "I love you, Molly," he said, and together they walked hand-in-hand out the door and into the hall.

_-.-.-.-.-_

_Thanks for reading!! Please let me know what you think!!_

_--A Chocolate Frog_


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